Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
A manufacturer/supplier who we once worked with went out of business sold their domain to a competitor of ours (another retailer). The domain includes our most sought after two word phrase. This competitor now comes up as #1 for this exact phrase & does ok with related terms as well. For years prior to this our site enjoyed #1 position for this and many related terms. Our domain is one character different from this competitor's domain.
At this time, the whois information for this competitor's domain still reflects the old owners, and shows that it's been active for over 10 years. Though the domain has been taken over by the new corporate retail business, and all content has been replaced, the registration information seems to suggest that this site has been continuously run by one entity. I believe that lingering inbound links that are still existing since the ownership change occurred are still intended to point to the manufacturer (old owners), but the retail site is now enjoying these un-earned inbounds. Most of the other inbound links the new owners have drummed up are very very low quality.
Am I correct in my assumption that Google factors in the longevity of a domain's registration? If so, wouldn't a change in ownership and site content somewhat 'reset' the age of the domain? If the answers to these are 'yes', how would one point this discrepancy out to the knob turners at Google?
If the Whois changed and the content changed, then Google certainly has that data and has decided not to remove the link-pop in this case.
